It's a simple news story......

In a simple short paragraph or two the writer could have said all that needs to be said about Rhode Island pursuing political correctness at the expense of historical accuracy. Alas, s/he could not keep from sharing their own Constitutional incompetence.

Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his unorthodox religious views, minister Roger Williams set out in 1636 and settled at the northern tip of Narragansett Bay, which he called Providence Plantations. Williams founded the first Baptist church in America and became famous for embracing the separation of church and state, a legal principle enshrined in the Bill of Rights a century later.

Yeah, it is enshrined there. A line in a letter from Pres. Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut, and NOWHERE to be found in the Bill of Rights, is enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

It would do all those that claim such an ignorant statement a great deal of good to read the WHOLE letter. Then, maybe, they will all know that what they knew was wrong.

Mr. President

To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.

Plainly, Pres, Jefferson was showing that government has no place in religion, and that man has duty to his God and religion, and is obligated to those duties.

Government schools produced what they were designed to produce; lemmings, chattel and sheeple that all spout the official pronouncements of historical facts.